First time broody, when to pull eggs

[SmiYa0126]

First time broody, about one year old, hatched her first chick sometime after Thursday night. No more chicks have hatched since then.

How long do I wait to pull her off so she can take care of chick? I assisted her today with feeding chick as it hasn't eaten and was starting to starve. It's getting way more active now and peeping.

She had started out with four eggs, and then stole a bunch from my other hens and accumulated who knows how many. .. I've read through many posts with broodies that had time to candle and mark their eggs. I barely had time to get her to eat and drink otherwise she was running back to her eggs.

I borrowed a magic fly incubator from a neighbor and have it running, but since the eggs are at different times should I not use the turner and turn them myself? I have to lift the lid to do that.

Thank you as always everyone! Happy 4th of July!!!

 

[NatJ]

I would probably take all the eggs, candle them, and then put the developing ones in the incubator.

When you candle them, make notes of how far along you think they probably are (maybe write it on the egg), and discard any that have not developed at all.

From what I've read about turning, it's very important to turn during the first week, still helpful in part of the second week, and not needed at all during the third week.

So after you make a reasonable guess of how far along they are, you can decide whether any of them actually need to be turned. If they are fairly close to hatching, you can completely skip turning, which will make things easier. If they are far away from hatching, you can use the incubator's turner for a while, and then you may be able to quit turning them all at some point.

 

[SmiYa0126]

I would probably take all the eggs, candle them, and then put the developing ones in the incubator.

When you candle them, make notes of how far along you think they probably are (maybe write it on the egg), and discard any that have not developed at all.

From what I've read about turning, it's very important to turn during the first week, still helpful in part of the second week, and not needed at all during the third week.

So after you make a reasonable guess of how far along they are, you can decide whether any of them actually need to be turned. If they are fairly close to hatching, you can completely skip turning, which will make things easier. If they are far away from hatching, you can use the incubator's turner for a while, and then you may be able to quit turning them all at some point.

Thank you!